


feel what you feel

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Series: Intermissions [2]
Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Aftercare, Bondage, Character studies through smut: my brand, Edgeplay, Established Relationship, F/M, Femdom, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Clear, Post-Credits, Sadism, Safeword Use, Whipping, but with considerably more kink than sex, post-epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:20:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23058394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: Now that she and Zag are back together, Megaera can admit that she has certain feelings for him.One such feeling? The desire to whip him until he screams.That hasn't changed, at least.
Relationships: Megaera/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Series: Intermissions [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657159
Comments: 15
Kudos: 227





	feel what you feel

**Author's Note:**

> Do mind the tags on this one! It's marked "Graphic Depictions of Violence" for a reason--the whipping is pretty severe this time. Don't worry, though, Zag is still _super_ into it.
> 
> NOTE: This fic has been updated to reflect a 1.0 understanding of things! There are minor hints at the state of things following the end credits.

_Let yourself feel what you feel about him, daughter_ , Nyx had advised—more than once—but as soon as Megaera gave in at last she remembered why she had fought so hard against it. Because as it turns out, she feels quite a few things about Zagreus, many of them with a debilitating force. Less of the permanent aggravation, it’s true (so she admits, to herself alone, that she may have been more aggravated with her own limits than with him); more of _everything else_. When he looks at her and smiles, that vulnerable unbreakable hope in his eyes, affection swells in her so suddenly that she nearly gags on it. Not just once. Every time. He makes her feel _stupid_ with care. She’s been smiling around him, recently, even laughing. And he looks at every expression of joy he wrests from her like it’s a hidden treasure, and the way she teases him for it is only a flimsy defense against the way her heart surges to meet and match his sincerity. She hates that she doesn’t hate it. It’s all so hideously sentimental.

( _You should tell_ him _how you feel_ , Thanatos says, when she complains about how defenseless Zagreus makes her, and it’s not that she thinks he’s wrong. She just isn’t ready for that yet.)

For a brief while, after they shared that ambrosia and she made the recklessly moronic decision to let herself have this, she had been sincerely afraid of all of this joy. Not only because she could not (cannot) seem to tame it. Not only because it left her open and undefended. But she feared losing her edge around him. She was afraid of losing that first point of commonality that they had discovered: that electric moment when something in him shifts towards a preyish anticipation and something in Megaera catches fire all at once in answer. She likes him—fine. But she still wants to like _hurting_ him.

Quickly enough, she discovers that she hasn’t lost that at all, and neither has he. So, in that case (she decides magnanimously), the rest of it can stay.

*

It’s _so_ easy to get him into bed. One word has him trotting after her, trying to hide his eager grin so that her cover story holds up long enough to get them out of the main hall. This time, when he turns towards his own chambers, she clears her throat and keeps walking. Towards her own. She listens carefully enough to hear his breath hitch with anticipation, and then two quick footfalls have him walking evenly with her.

“You have something particular in mind, I take it?” he murmurs.

“Shut up,” she answers with cold-faced curtness. It’s an act, of course, but he likes the game and she likes the excuse to hide that she’s as eager as he. She opens the door to her chambers and orders him in before her with a sharp nod. Then she shuts the door with a satisfying _snap_ , all but silencing Orpheus’s music from the hall, and locks it.

Zagreus gives a rueful half-grin as she turns his way. “I do miss being able to do that,” he confesses. Zagreus’s chambers have only had a door, let alone a lock, back when Hades forced Megaera into his arms; as soon as the news of their breakup had reached him, Hades had the door removed again. Which is appalling, truly. 

“Why don’t you just commission a door from the contractor?” Megaera asks. “It’d be a better use of your efforts than that enormous portrait of yourself in the west hall.”

Zagreus shrugs with a wry smile. “You know, I asked recently, and apparently they’re still not allowed to sell me that.”

Wonderful. So despite everything, Lord Hades is as petty with his son as ever. But to get into _that_ would be wildly out of line with Megaera’s intentions for the next little while, so she only tosses her head and fixes Zagreus with a superior sneer.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to bring you here whenever I really want to hear you scream.”

And oh, how rewardingly he boggles. He stumbles over his first attempt to respond, swallows, and then tries again. “Is that the plan?” he asks, not as cavalier as he wants to be thanks to the unfocused light in his eyes.

“It certainly is.” She beckons wordlessly and he comes to her so that she may take his jaw between her fingertips. That light touch is all she needs to ensure that his gaze is for her alone. “As satisfying as all of your stifled choking has been, I think I deserve much better than that. Don’t you?”

“…Only if you can get ‘better’ out of me,” Zagreus says, a provoking grin flitting across his face.

Megaera answers it with the long, confident smile of a predator. “Don’t worry, I’m sure I can.”

It’s clear in his eyes that he wants her to, very much indeed. Already Megaera can feel herself slipping into sync with him. This is what she loves, what she _certainly_ doesn’t get at work: this tangled, demanding resonance that makes her pulse rush and her muscles itch with the desire to tear a reaction from him. It’s been so long since she _really_ laid into him. He’s cocky right now, but she knows exactly how she’s going to make a mess of him.

She lets go of his chin. “Strip,” she orders.

As he moves to obey, she slides out of her own leggings and armor, leaving her chiton on, and takes out what she’ll need: two padded cuffs for his wrists, two short lengths of rope, and a whip with a pitch-black handle. He eyes the latter as he pulls out of his leggings. It’s not one he’s seen before. Once she’s sure she has his attention, she lets it unfurl so that he can see what’s coming for him.

His eyes travel down the long, braided thong, suddenly intent and captivated. “Oh,” he breathes.

It’s studded. Braided into its bright pink length at three-inch intervals are triangular metal beads, designed to rip into flesh even more easily than an ordinary whip does. With a twitch of an eyebrow, Megaera invites Zag forward and offers the whip to him to examine. He takes the handle in his left hand and traces his right down the length of the thong. Then he squeezes one of the studs between his fingers, letting it press against the pad of his thumb.

“These were Alecto’s innovation, originally,” Megaera explains with some irony in her tone. “She tends to encounter the most… _difficult_ shades, and needed something to make sure idiots like you who think they _want_ a whipping still get what they deserve. Tis and I added them to our repertoire once we noticed what kind of results she got.”

“I see.” Zagreus lifts his gaze from his fascination with the whip momentarily to send a smug glance her way. “Should I be flattered to be subjected to such advanced measures?”

“No.”

“I am, though.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know you are, Zag.” And the truth is that she expected him to be flattered and is pleased to have hit her mark (so to speak). That doesn’t change the fact that he’s insane to consider this a badge of honor.

Although if he can stand up to it for any considerable length of time… that may be something to be proud of.

“Hand it over,” she instructs.

There is a whiff of reluctance on him as he gives it back to her. He watches her wrap it and secure it in its holster; then he meets her eyes, his gaze clear and insistent. “How do I earn that, Meg?”

She raises one eyebrow. “Eager today, are we, Zagreus?”

An unashamed shrug. “I like novelty.”

“Well, you’re in luck.” She curls one hand around the back of his neck. She can feel his pulse racing there, and he’s already hot to the touch. “You don’t have to earn it this time. I told you—I just want to hear you scream.”

His breath stutters out of him. “Ah,” he says, eyes locked helplessly onto hers.

There is… _fear_ , there, in his eyes. There always is, a strange hopeless dread that Megaera knows well. Better than he does, perhaps; she asked him about it once and he denied feeling any such thing. And Zagreus does have a knack for denying things so thoroughly that they fail to enter his consciousness at all. In this realm, he only knows his eagerness for pain and how it fosters lust in him. That he also feels dread at being cornered and then pride at withstanding her treatment is something he has not grasped or believed even when she has pointed it out to him. She gave up, before. She wonders if she will try again sometime soon.

Not now, though.

She likes too much the thrill that his fear sends through her.

“Give me your wrists,” she orders, and he presents them so that she can fasten the cuffs into place; “Face the wall,” she says then, indicating which one she means, and he positions himself cleverly and knowingly between two posts hammered into the wall that will have his arms spread wide once she ties his wrists to them. She does the left first, yanking hard at both knots to ensure that he cannot pull himself free. Then the right. Then she runs her hands over both his arms, feeling the power in them and how it is coiled with potential and enforced patience. His breath out is a little heavier than it needs to be. It hitches as she slides one hand around his chest, holding him, and the other down his torso to his half-erect cock. She gives him one squeeze, slow and easy, and he moans faintly.

“Zag,” she says, murmuring in his ear, “this is going to hurt.”

Another soft moan, and he responds with a dizzy nod.

“No,” she says, firmly. “More than you’re thinking. I want you screaming for me. I don’t give a damn if you get off this time.”

It’s mostly true, although at just this moment, with his cock in her hand and need pooled hot within her as well, she finds it harder than she expects to stay on task. She could brace herself against the wall right here, over his shoulder, and bring herself off. She could have him squirming with envy and need before they even get properly started.

Or she could do what she planned to and see where it goes from there.

She releases his cock and runs her hands up and down his back. Warming it, sort of, except that his arousal has him well past the need for that. “I’m going to tear the flesh from your back in ribbons,” she tells him, and she feels him shudder with desire. But that’s not quite good enough. “Tell me you want it, Zag.”

He arches into her touch, pulls at the shackles on his wrists just to feel his captivity. “Of course I want it,” he says, his voice quick and certain and only a little breathless. “Meg, you know I do. I’ve never seen anything like that whip before and I want to feel it.”

She scoffs, fond and scornful. “Horny, greedy brat.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

That doesn’t deserve a response. She makes him wait until he fidgets.

“Megaera,” he protests, “you said I wouldn’t have to earn this.”

She laughs at him. “You don’t. I just like watching you squirm, you know that.” And she slaps the back of his shoulder with a flat hand. The sound of the strike is lost in the way he huffs out, irritated at the triviality of the sensation. But Megaera steps back then and looses her whip from her belt. Zagreus stills as he senses the change in her bearing.

“You think you’re ready for this, don’t you?” Megaera asks him.

He snorts. “I somehow doubt it’s any worse than being run down by Theseus’s idiotic—”

She raises the lash and hits him, _hard_.

Everything goes out of him at once, escaping in a shocked, hoarse yell. As he breathes heavily, the welt raises red and angry on his back, dotted with short, stubby lines of broken skin that begin oozing blood at once. Megaera gives him a moment, and spends it admiring her handiwork.

“…Whew,” he says, once his breath is caught. “That’s… different.”

“More than you were expecting?” she smirks.

“It is, I will admit that.”

“You can have the normal whip instead if you ask nicely.”

“No way.” She can hear amusement in his voice. “What should I do if I want more of the same?”

“Easy. Just keep acting like the brat you are.” She hits him again. He makes that same sound, a ragged _haaaugh_ with an edge of real distress to it, and it sends a jolt of desire shooting through Megaera’s stomach. It’s so hard not to hit him a third time immediately. But there’s one last bit of business before they can really get into it.

“Zagreus,” she says to draw his attention. She waits until his breathing steadies; it seems to take longer than the first time. Then she asks, “How many of those can you take?”

He considers the question seriously. “It’s fifty, usually?”

“Yes.”

“Thirty, then.”

She rolls her eyes. “You won’t make it to thirty.” He doesn’t realize how cumulative this will be. The more skin the studs break, the easier it will be for the leather thong itself to take his flesh with it. It’s going to get harder to bear very quickly. “I’ll be surprised if you can handle twenty.”

“Twenty-five,” he shoots back.

“Not likely.”

“Meg, you do remember that I’m now getting beaten half to death as part of my job, don’t you?” He makes to look over his shoulder at her, but twisting opens one of his wounds a little more and he winces. Then he hurriedly tries to hide the wince with a boast. “I can take any manner of pain.”

“Keep in mind that _my_ job is literally torture. I’ve been at this longer than you’ve been alive, and I know what I’m doing.”

“I can make it to twenty-five,” he insists.

Stubborn little brat. It hardly matters, anyway. He’ll lose count and Megaera will know before he does when he’s at his limit. He’s always made Megaera keep track of that.

She raises her whip again and speaks, her voice cold with displeasure. “Let’s see if you can, then.”

The lash hits him before she finishes her sentence and his shout, equal parts surprise and pain, drowns out the last word. It lingers, this time, as a groan that escapes between his teeth, and then bursts into another yell as the next lash takes a full stripe of skin with it. He shakes, his arms jerking against their bonds, but he stands firm.

So Megaera goes to work, and soon enough she has from him the screams she wanted to hear. They come in a long lurching stream: now a ragged uneven panting, now a bleat of inarticulate agonized sound, now a drawn-out groan in the back of his throat. By the eighth lash, there are red lines of raw skin criss-crossing his back, and blood drips over his ass and down his legs. Every further lash must be an all-consuming agony, well beyond what he’s had from her before. But he doesn’t stop her, only taking her rough treatment and crying out with each strike. His screams are so loud that Megaera isn’t entirely sure her door is heavy enough to block the sound. Well, to hell with it; let the House shades speculate. Let them all know that Zagreus is hers. The rest of it, they won’t figure out by hearing _this_.

At twelve, she stays her whip for a moment, catching the lash in her free hand. Zagreus’s blood smears across her palm and she feels her heart pounding with exertion and with the heady knowledge of what she’s doing to him. “Zagreus,” she says, loud enough to cut through his tortured groans. “Beg me for mercy.”

His next breath comes out as a growl through gritted teeth. “No,” he says, hoarsely.

“Beg, _now_. Or I’ll keep going.”

He only breathes heavily, his back glistening with the movement.

She narrows her eyes. “You really like this that much, huh?”

He turns his head just enough to look at her with his red eye. It burns with a determined fire. “ _More_ ,” he demands.

Megaera looks at him, and exhales. She will tear him to _shreds_. Without warning, she gives him the _more_ he asked for, three lashes in quick succession that have him yanking desperately at his bonds and screaming loud enough—she’s sure—to alert the whole damn House. Then he growls and goes quieter for a moment. As Megaera listens, she hears him swearing steadily under his breath. She waits for him to call her off. But he doesn’t—of course he doesn’t. Without looking at her he shakes his head stubbornly.

“Idiot,” she mutters, and strikes him again. This time his cry turns downwards at the end, despair seeping into it. The next strike has him pulling in a wheezing gasp, and when it goes out again, a sob comes with it. She sees his shoulders convulse and that hurts him, too; he tries to stifle the next sob and it turns into a clenched, high-pitched whine instead.

She scowls. “ _Beg_ , Zagreus.”

“No,” he answers, voice cracked, “no—”

Another lash, another scream that becomes a sob, and again Megaera pauses to assess him. It takes only a moment’s observation to know that he’s at his limit. His knees are wobbling and his arms keep jerking subconsciously at the bonds, and as she watches he hits his head on the wall in front of him once, an unthinking act of frustration and overwhelm. But before she can open her mouth and tell him they’re done here, he gulps in a ragged breath. “Meg, wait—”

She stands still. “Yes?”

He takes a few more deep breaths, all with a frantic edge to them, and then—“How many is that?”

“That was eighteen.”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she realizes should have lied. She should have told him that was twenty, or twenty-one, and spared him from the foolish need to prove himself. Now he will insist that he can take more, just to prove her wrong, and he’ll bristle at her for refusing him. She grits her teeth, trying to figure out how to keep this from turning into a bitter, petty competition and coming up with nothing—

But then Zagreus breathes out throatily and leans against the wall. “I can’t,” he mumbles, almost too quietly for Megaera to hear. “I can’t, Meg, I… mercy…”

She is taken aback. For a moment she hardly knows how to react—who to _be_. She discards, as soon as it comes to her, the thought of mocking his surrender; she discards, too, self-righteous exasperation and the desire to ask _what did I tell you?_ But he needs some kind of response. So Megaera lets her arm fall to her side, the whip’s studs _plink_ ing halfheartedly against the floor, and she speaks. “Mercy,” she agrees, voice soft and frankly more certain than she feels. “That’s all, then. …You did well, Zag.”

She isn’t sure he hears the commendation. At the word ‘mercy’ he dissolves, sagging forward and whimpering with each breath out. Her stomach tightens. She has to remind herself that she’s seen this before: he is always like this at his limit, even when she is the one to put a stop to the pain. There’s no reason to be uneasy, almost certainly—

“Zagreus,” she says, and though that doesn’t stop his whimpers, she continues. “I’m… right here. If you want me to be.”

That he responds to at once, giving a rapid, shaky nod, and part of the knot in Megaera’s chest loosens. She puts her whip aside and then steps forward, raising her hand to touch his hair. When he starts, perhaps too accustomed to her hair-pulling, she finds herself _shhh_ -ing him softly. “Mercy,” she reminds him.

Another shaky nod, and then he lets her comb through his hair with gentle fingers. It always feels like embers when she does this, little harmless licks of flames against her palm. She supposes she associates it with this state of after-calm. She is soothing herself as much as him, if that’s allowed, and waiting as he slowly stitches himself back together.

When his whimpers become steadying breaths, she speaks to him again. “I’m going to get you some ambrosia to start healing this,” she says. “But I doubt you could stay standing or even sitting up on your own just yet. Are you fine still being tied?”

He gives a slurred mumble that seems basically affirmative. So Megaera takes a step away—observes him—and, when he does not protest, turns to retrieve the ambrosia from within her desk. The food of the gods, it will restore him even better than the sandwiches Charon sells him out there. She opens the bottle and pours a bit into a kylix. Zagreus shifts as she returns to him, his bleary eyes opening.

“’m not really sure that’ll help,” he says, voice still uneven.

“Did you have another suggestion?” She never had a fountain installed by her room like he did. An oversight that she may have to correct.

“You could always just… finish me off?” And her face must go stony at that, because even in his half-gone state he protests, “I mean that sincerely, Meg, and I wouldn’t be… angry. Just seems faster.”

“…Nyx would never let me hear the end of it,” Megaera answers. It’s an excuse; truthfully she just doesn’t want to do that to him. Not in this context. She lifts the shallow cup to his lips. “Drink.”

He obeys, eyes slipping closed as she tips the amber liquid into his mouth.

“Mmph,” he mumbles after the first sip. “I forgot how good that stuff—”

“Drink,” she insists again, and doesn’t let him babble until he empties the cup. As she fills it a second time, though, he does speak.

“That’s from me?”

“Yes.” She puts the bottle down. “It’s my last one.”

“I’ll win you another.”

A snort and a wry smile. “Think it’ll be that easy, Warden?”

He chuckles indistinctly, and before he can strain himself to think of some clever comeback she has the ambrosia back at his lips. By the time he empties the cup, his breathing sounds almost normal. He shifts his weight and discovers that his legs will hold him properly again.

“’m feeling better,” he mumbles.

“Are you?” Megaera isn’t so sure. She’s seen the energy he has out there, spitting sarcasm at his foes even on the verge of death. It’s a far cry from his current muddy-headed attitude.

“I am, I’m just...” His right hand tugs at the bonds as though he means to gesture with it. “Fuzzy? But it’s good. I feel... good.”

“You don’t look good.”

And he laughs at that, though he immediately follows it with a wince. “Oh, I must look a sight, do I, Meg?”

“Yes. Worse than that time you called me for help with those Greatshields.”

“Mm?” He thinks. “Ahh, that one. They still killed me, after you left. Not your fault, though, I was sloppy about healing that time. Got cocky.”

“ _Got_ cocky? Zag, you’ve been cocky for as long as I’ve known you.” And sometimes it’s been insecure and others confident, sometimes earned and sometimes not. But he always has that air to him, a sense that if nothing else he can outlast anything thrown his way.

This time, though—

Megaera puts the cup aside, turning thoughts over in her head. She reaches no conclusions just yet. “I’m going to wash your back,” she says to Zagreus. “I’m letting you down, so get ready to hold yourself up.”

He shifts slightly in his bonds as though he can pull his wrists out of her reach. “Do you have to? I’m enjoying this.”

“…Are you out of your _mind_?” Megaera asks, in genuine curiosity.

“Maybe. Would you leave me tied, though, Meg?”

She stares at him for a moment, then rolls her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. “Fine,” she says. Honestly, it’s probably easier that way, and it will spare her sheets.

She wets a cloth from the basin in the corner and squeezes it over his back. As the water cascades over his wounds, he hisses.

“It’s going to sting,” she says belatedly, and Zag gives a rough bark of laughter.

“Sting? Gods, Meg, it feels like you hit bone.”

“Not bone. Just muscle.” She eyes the tatters she made of him. “Quite a bit of that, though.”

“Mmph.” He closes his eyes and breathes out. “And this is _with_ the ambrosia kicking in. That’s a hell of a whip, Meg.”

“Yes it is.”

The ambrosia is still working its effects on him. As Megaera carefully tends to his wounds, wiping thick red blood away, she can see his skin beginning to reknit itself. His breathing slowly grows more relaxed as his wounds close, and she can feel contentment oozing off of him. He is _entirely_ out of his mind.

“Zag,” she says, her voice sharper than she means it to be in her confusion, “why did you call me off this time?”

She voices the whole question before she can ask herself whether she really wants to hear the answer. He’s _never_ done that before, not under her most vicious punishment, not even when their battles out there have turned strange and angry and all too intimate. She had thought it an inviolable truism that he never surrendered to physical pain. And yet here they are.

Zagreus doesn’t have a ready answer for her, either. He takes a deep breath, considering her question, and looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “It feels… miles away, already. It just hurt so godsdamned much, and I wanted it to stop, and trying to prove myself to you just… stopped feeling necessary, I suppose.”

Megaera frowns, carefully out of his sight. He doesn’t need to prove himself to her; she doesn’t know how to get that through his head for good. But then he cranes his neck to look at her and she makes her face neutral as he searches it, concerned.

“I hope I didn’t ruin your fun, Meg. I didn’t mean to, if I did. Will you forgive me?”

…Blood and darkness, this hopeless, cracked-open godling. Megaera sighs out a breath and returns to washing his back. “You didn’t ruin anything,” she tells him, balancing comfort and aggravation in her voice. “How many times have I ordered you to let me know when you’re at your limit, only to be ignored? Do you understand how much that drives me mad?”

He sighs. “Yes,” he admits in a guilty murmur, and after a moment: “It’s just never felt right, backing down. Considering… everything.”

Considering what she is, and what they were supposed to be to each other; considering what they do to each other out there. Megaera understands, but she wants all of it out of her way.

“Forget all of that,” she says quietly. “In here, like this, you’re mine. And when I give you an order, I expect it to be obeyed.”

He gives a soft laugh and a dreamy smile. “I’m never going to make that easy for you.”

“I know.” But she’s up to his challenge, as he’s up to hers.

By the time she finishes washing him, what wounds haven’t healed entirely have at least begun to scab. She drops the cloth to the floor and scrubs it through the puddle of blood there using her foot, though some of it has dried already and will need more in-depth attention. Which she’ll take care of herself, of course. She would _not_ make Dusa deal with this.

And now, when she asks, Zagreus deigns to admit that his arms are getting a little tired. So she lets him down, watching to make sure he doesn’t stumble, and steps back as he finds his balance again. He moves his shoulders and torso for a moment, as if relearning how his body works, and then looks her way.

“I suppose I owe you thanks, for all of that,” he says, one eyebrow lifted suggestively.

But Megaera shakes her head. “Not necessary.” She _is_ still buzzing, a little, and wet nearly to the point of dripping, but she wants quiet time in thought more than she wants to get off. Still, she returns the offer: “What about you?”

“Oh!” His face transforms in an instant, utter surprise with a hint of embarrassment. “I already… Didn’t you notice?”

Heat shoots up the back of her neck. “What? _When_?”

“Around the sixth stroke or so… I think? I _really_ lost count this time.”

She stares at him. She outright _boggles_. She makes two separate attempts to say something _intelligent_ to that, something cutting and composed, and then gives up. “Blood and darkness, I cannot believe you,” she swears. “Alecto would _weep_.”

His brow contracts in incredulous concern. “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

“No, I am not going to tell my younger sister about our sex life.” She closes her eyes and presses one hand to her forehead. “Frankly, you do enough of that all on your own.”

“I don’t tell, I _insinuate_ ,” Zagreus protests. She can hear the smirk in his voice, damn him. She wants to kiss him until his lips bruise.

While she still has her eyes closed, Zagreus steps closer and winds one arm around her waist. The scent of his blood fills her nostrils, and the hint of ash he carries with him always. She opens her eyes—which is a mistake, because the full force of his affectionate gaze hits her square in the heart.

Damn him, anyway.

“Meg,” he says coaxingly, “I won’t ask again, but I sincerely do think you deserve to feel good after all of that. May I do that for you?”

His warm fingertips are kneading the base of her spine, massaging away the tension she carries there, and she breathes out slowly. There is, perhaps, no need to fight so hard all the time. She’s still learning that.

“Come, then,” she says, and leads him to kneel beside her bed. And when he puts his head between her legs and discovers how wet she is—because of him, because of all of this—the way he groans and dives in is enough to chase away the last of her hesitation. He drinks of her desperately, hungrily, and for just a few minutes Megaera lets herself get lost in the sensation of his lips and tongue on her. She grasps the back of his head and rolls her hips against him and he gives and gives until climax washes over her at last.

She sits back, catching her breath, and Zagreus remains kneeling between her legs. He gazes up at her with that same unquenchable affection.

“Meg, you know you make me happy, don’t you?” he says, guileless.

As if he leaves her any choice but to know it.

But that isn’t what she says.

Instead she trails one hand through his hair, down the back of his neck. She looks into those bright-burning eyes and this time doesn’t try to defend herself against the way they shake her heart.

“Likewise,” she admits, and lets herself echo his smile.


End file.
